The basic facts about Melvyn Bragg go round and round in the press cuttings like socks in a tumble dryer: born into a working-class Cumbrian family, now living in haute-bourgeois Hampstead; an arts broadcaster and Labour peer; and a writer of novels that win Bad Sex awards. But what that Wiki-bio fails to capture are the two most important aspects of Bragg's career: his instinctive commitment to making the arts more accessible, and his enthusiasm for whatever it is he talking about (even when it happens to be cod-reggae outfit UB40). The Guardian's reviewer of the first South Bank Show missed the point, describing the 1978 vintage Bragg "as professional, acceptable, intelligent a front man as most on the box". Yet what was astounding about "the Melvyn Bragg show" (as it was soon dubbed) was that it was on ITV, then the most-watched network in Europe, and how it mixed up Paul McCartney with Herbert von Karajan. After 31 years, the programme suffered a death by a thousand cuts and came off air at the end of last year. But the 70-year-old Bragg can still be heard fronting Radio 4's In Our Time, discussing everything from Theodor Adorno to yellow bile. A recent edition on the Silk Road almost ground to a halt when Bragg mused, "Must have been quite a sight... the Chinese fighting the Muslims on the steppes of Asia" before giving a sudden start, "Anyway, let's not get carried away". Ah, but getting carried away has always been part of Bragg's point; long may it continue.